Makoto Takatsuki is a normal high school student and a hardcore RPG player. However, “normal” goes out the window when his whole class is involved in a bus crash and whisked away to another world! Powerful gods rule this strange new land of magic and monsters, and every newcomer is blessed with strong stats and unique skills. Well, not quite. Makoto’s stats turn out to be pathetic, and his skills are super weak compared to his classmates’...he’s even stuck as an apprentice mage. Worse still, he’s given only ten years to live! Luckily, Makoto soon meets a minor goddess named Noah, who appears in Makoto’s dreams and asks him to become her first believer. With the help of Noah's blessings and a divine weapon, Makoto seeks to become strong enough to rescue his goddess from the dungeon where she’s been trapped. By training hard and using his weak skills in unorthodox ways, Makoto proves that, even when playing on hardcore difficulty, an RPG player always makes it to the end!

After being dragged to another world with his classmates, hardcore RPG player Makoto Takatsuki has spent his time training and grinding. Nearly a year has gone by since Makoto became an adventurer, and he has finally reached level 20 and iron rank, which should be a cause for celebration... However, despite these accomplishments, Makoto feels as though he’s hit a wall. All seems dim until the goddess Noah tosses him a lifeline—head for the great maze dungeon of Labyrinthos! The place is well-known for its difficulty, but since he and Lucy are now iron rank, they’re strong enough to challenge it. Makoto and Lucy head off to conquer Labyrinthos, fully intending to stay in areas that are relatively safe. But the best-laid plans often go awry, and after an accident plunges them into the depths of the dungeon, the pair end up facing off with both monsters and revelations wildly beyond their expectations.

Makoto Takatsuki and his friends have saved Roses and are now headed to the most prosperous nation on the continent—Highland. They soon arrive in the capital, Symphonia, and despite its grandeur, the city is a hotbed of race and class inequality. When the group bumps into the actively hostile Hero of Lightning, Makoto must weather a vicious battle while simultaneously navigating the limitations of uncontrolled elemental magic. Meanwhile, the Snake Sect is plotting an attack on Symphonia, but the scheme runs deeper than anyone expected: the ruined nation of Laphroaig, which is inhabited by servants of the Great Demon Lord, has become a fierce shadowy presence that lurks beneath the apparent riches of Highland. With our heroes caught in a deadlock against imminent destruction, aid comes from an unlikely place—the cursed moon priestess of Laphroaig?! Can Makoto trust this exiled priestess and save humanity from being overrun by demons?

While venturing through Labyrinthos, Makoto Takatsuki and his party are attacked by a dragon and sent tumbling into the dungeon’s inner depths. But just when all hope of escape seems lost, Makoto miraculously reunites with his former classmate Aya Sasaki—who’s reincarnated as a lamia! Aya recounts her harrowing rebirth and the tragedy that befell her lamia family at the hands of the harpies. She’s sworn vengeance upon the whole harpy flock, including their loathsome calamity class queen. And as an RPG and boss battle aficionado, Makoto is all too happy to lend an old friend a hand Now he’ll have to rally his party and prepare an infallible counterstrike, but the harpy queen may have an unforeseen and devastating ability in her arsenal... Hardcore mode is about to get even harder! Can Makoto optimize his party’s skills to beat this deadly boss?

Game junkie extraordinaire Makoto Takatsuki, allied with his classmates and some friendly elementals, managed to defeat the blight dragons and save Labyrinthos. His reward? A summons to the capital of Roses, where he’ll receive recognition for his achievement alongside a reception from an ice-cold princess—the water priestess, Sophia. Unfortunately, this unwelcome reunion isn’t the only thing waiting at the capital. When the city is attacked by hordes of countless monsters, the situation begins to look hopeless. But then, Makoto gets a decree from Noah: to overcome the crisis facing the city, he’ll have to put aside his grudge with the princess and accept her assistance. Will he be able to do so? And will he be willing? Luckily, Makoto does have backup; he’s spent time strengthening his bonds with his friends and has even gained insight into Lucy through a brush with her elven culture. The odds might be bleak, but to Makoto, playing on hard mode is the only way to advance!

Reincarnated otherworlder Makoto Takatsuki is an apprentice mage with lackluster skills and stats, but when he is recruited by the goddess Noah, he becomes her sole believer. There’s just one caveat—Noah is actually a wicked deity! Along with his fellow mage Lucy, Makoto has been making a name for himself as an adventurer, taking down everything from ogres to griffins. After nearly a year in this new world, Noah finally offers Makoto a helpful revelation: a “fateful encounter” awaits him in the Great Maze Labyrinthos. He enlists the support of his best friend Fujiyan to tackle this vast dungeon, but before long, Makoto and Lucy are attacked by a dragon! When the floor of the dungeon collapses, the pair find themselves stranded deep underground and surrounded by high-level monsters that are eager for their next meal. Is this what a game over screen looks like? And when all seems lost, can a “fateful encounter” save Makoto from a bad end?

Takahiro’s group finds themselves in a hopeless predicament, facing off against the Skanda Iino Yuna’s overwhelming power. But thanks to Mana’s sacrificial play, they successfully overcome Iino’s strength. However, as a result, a landslide splits the party in two and half the group is washed away by the river raging below the cliff. When Lily manages to find Takahiro and the others who were separated, yet another cheater launches a sudden attack on them. With Takahiro’s forces scattered and exhausted from the previous battle, can he fend off this mad warrior?

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

A reborn beauty is already turning heads at school! The old Hero-King Inglis was thrown far into the future, reborn as a beautiful girl. Now, together with Rafinha, her lifelong friend, and Leone, an aspiring knight the two met on their journey to the capital, Inglis studies the ways of war at the royal knights' academy—where she's turning heads with her battle prowess more than for her looks! School life isn't all about making new friends, though, as she hears rumors of a Rune-Eater that targets knights... "A Rune-Eater, huh. Sounds fun. I bet it's pretty tough." This extraordinary squire marches on through fun with friends and all the fights she could ask for!

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.